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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2019
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HEARTHFIRE & BRIMSTONE
Onions are essential
to many great recipes
Yes, onions
By NATALIE ST. JOHN
For Chinook Observer
J
udge Doug Goelz spent decades dealing
with other people’s problems. After he
stepped down from the bench last month,
he quickly discovered retired people have prob-
lems of their own. Suddenly beset with spare time,
he tried to make spaghetti sauce from scratch and
failed miserably.
“It was terrible!” he told the staff in the court
clerk’s offi ce on a Friday afternoon. The clerks and
I got on the case immediately. What herbs had he
used? Did he stir in a spoonful of sugar? Goelz
started taking notes on a scrap of paper.
“Saute an onion, then add some wine and cook
it off before you add the tomato sauce,” I said. That
caught the learned judge by surprise.
“An onion?”
“Sauteing an onion is basically the fi rst step in
making everything,” I told him. I was only exag-
gerating a little.
The case for deceit
People talk about onions the way they talk about
the jocks from their high school: Smelly, sweaty,
likely to make you cry. The two Formerly Tiny
Humans in our household used to start every din-
ner by asking, “Does this have onions in it?” It
was their version of saying grace. I smiled beatifi -
cally as I said their food was onion-free. I was lying
through my teeth. Sauteed onions form the basis
of countless soups, sauces, vegetable and meat
dishes, and like most people who “hate onions,”
they would happily eat them as long as they didn’t
know.
When cooked low and slow, onions undergo
a remarkable transformation, becoming mellow,
nutty and quite sweet. They eventually dissolve
into pure, rich fl avor, which is why it’s worth learn-
ing how to tame this vegetal shrew. But fi rst, a bit
of history.
Beloved by cooks and quacks
Scientists don’t know where onions originated.
Bets are on Egypt, Iran or “The Stans” — Pakistan,
Kazakhstan, etc. They traveled well, so their use
in both cooking and folk medicine quickly spread
about 7,000 years ago.
People everywhere agreed they were good med-
icine, but they didn’t agree on what they cured. In
ancient Greece, that notorious quack, Pliny the
Elder, relied heavily on urine-based “medicines,”
but he took a break from soaking lizards in pee to
enumerate the many uses of onions. Dried onions
with wine and honey could fi x a dog bite right up,
with the added advantage of making a nice mar-
inade for chicken. Onions roasted in ash, mixed
with breast milk and goose-grease and injected
in the ears were, obviously, a go-to deafness cure.
Served as a beverage, the same concoction would
cure a person who was “suddenly struck dumb.”
I’d bet the patients used their restored verbal skills
to curse Pliny the Elder.
Photos by Damian Mulinix/Chinook Observer
Onions are 75 percent water, so if planning to carmelize them, you need to chop a lot more than you might
think.
Onions between the toes
In his rivetingly titled 1808 tome, “A New
Medicinal, Economical and Domestic Herbal:
Containing a Familiar and Accurate Description of
Upwards of 600 British Herbs, Shrubs, Trees, etc.,
Together With Some of the Most Esteemed and
Useful Exotic Plants Now Generally Cultivated
or Otherwise Made Use of in the United King-
dom; Arranged in Alphabetical Order: In Which
is Copiously Displayed, the most recent and prac-
tical method of procuring and applying the pecu-
liar properties of each species of plant in domestic
economy, physic & the arts of dyeing and staining,
etc., etc.,” author R. Parker noted his counterparts
on “The Continent” used “onion water” to cure
kidney and gallstones. Onions had once been pop-
ular for “dropsical complaints,” Parker said, but
modern medical minds knew they were better for
“suppurating tumors.”
Many people in the U.S. still swear by onions to
treat coughs and colds — one popular theory holds
than wearing onion-poultice-fi lled socks overnight
will draw the sickness out through the soles of the
feet. I haven’t tried that yet, but I do know onions
cure boring food.
Chemical warfare in the kitchen
Members of the allium family aren’t above a bit
of chemical warfare. Early in their life cycle, they
grow bulbs that store up energy. The plants don’t
fl ower until much later, so the bulbs are vulnerable
to attack. To fend off hungry beasts, they produce
a gas called propanethial S-oxide that is released
when the onion is chopped up, according to Texas
A&M University. When it comes into contact with
the eye, a chemical reaction takes place, causing a
burning sensation. The brain quickly formulates a
When chopping your onions, make lateral and vertical cuts fi rst, stopping just short of the end. Then cut
across the width to yield small even dice.
plan of attack: fl ush out the enemy with tears.
The most common advice for not feeling like
your eyes are being mustard-gassed is to cut them
under water, but I’ve always thought this sounded
like a good way cut a fi nger off. A ridiculous but
effective alternative is to put some kind of barrier
in front of your eyes — safety glasses, a snorkel-
ing mask, etc. I once resorted to wearing my swim-
ming goggles.
The chef strikes back
Most people sort of randomly hack onions into
uneven chunks. I call it the Lizzie Borden Method.
There is actually a very effi cient way to get neat
little uniform pieces that will make you feel very
cheffy.
Using a sharp knife, slice off the onion’s hairy
bottom. Slice vertically through the middle to make
two halves. Peel the skin off and lay the onions
on your cutting board cut sides down. Steady the
onion with one hand, and slice horizontally through
the middle of the onion, stopping just short of the
pointy end — you want that bit to stay intact to help
keep the onion together until you’re done.
If you want smaller dice, make two slices
through the center, so that you have three slabs of
onion stacked on top of each other. Now, slice ver-
tically down through the center of the onion, cut-
ting it in half lengthwise. Again, stop just short
of the tip. Make more vertical slices if you want
smaller pieces. Finally, cut thin slices across the
width of the onion. Voila!
See Onions, Page C2